The Goddess

[The Judge]

Hi Friends.. this story is from Queensland Australia, and has a drug use theme, it is in no way meant as an endorsement for illegal drugs, rather it is meant to describe what drug users do, there are a lot of us in the community, and this is how it is!!

In September last year I found a plastic bag like the ones drug dealers use, when I was cycling home after doing the shopping, it contained some marijuana of a type called White Widow, since the buds look like little spiders when they are on the plant. They dry to an almost white shade of pale green when they still look like spiders, hence the name, I got two smokes out of it.



The Sunday after I started to chill out, and decided to head to Nimbin in New South Wales where they have a growers market, I have been going there off and on since the nineties, taking the bus to Tweed Heads from Brisbane depart 3:30 pm, arrive at the Tweed around six, missed the last bus to Murwillumbah, so walk out of town a bit and camp beside the highway.. lucky I had brought my bedroll along.

I met a beautiful girl at the bus station at Roma Street in Brisbane, she was from Udine in North Eastern Italy, about one fifty km from Venice, I gave her my web address, she was going to visit Nimbin after she had been to the Gold Coast which is about half way to where I was going, the bedroll is called a swag here and I told her that I am a swagman.

Next day the bus stop had gone, where it had been was a gigantic freeway and there was no bus, lucky I keep in good shape, from the response that you get around here in traditional rural, goin’ on urban sprawl situ, if you aint mainstream society that is.



Maybe there has been a little eugenic preferment goin on, in those rural parts of Australia which traditionally harbored a significant population of hippies, druggies and loafers, and maybe whole towns are well and truly in on it, and maybe they are like the Salem witch burnings, and whole families and church inspired groups have been blooded!



Read about hundreds dead when hobo jungles were raided across America, and allegations of hidden famine and killing in rural US in the 1930’s, conform or get it in the neck, look happy not Hippy, 'cos we got a prob here re disappearin’ Hippies, like where do they go, ‘cos right now we got a very famous Hippy commune that is intact, to the point of the beds being made and food available, and tents and tepees but no people.



These are somewhat tough times what with foreclosures and aged homelessness, so a lotta the old hippies are tending to gravitate back toward that lifestyle, only to find the communities devastated.







The same routine transpires wherever you go, I got to town kinda stressed out after walking about twenty six km from Tweed Heads, to about two clicks short of the Condong Sugar Mill, I gave a farmer twenty bucks and he drove me the next eight clicks into town, he says he has farmed there all his life after growing up there, and says he does not know where the Nimbin bus goes from, I say just drop me at the town bus stop, he says he knows of no bus stop in town and drops me at the travel agent…



The travel bloke said go down a couple or three blocks to the bus station, and in my state I took a taxi and left a beautiful woman who had a bag, her coat, and her arm in a sling, who was in a similar predicament, it was not the first time I hurt the feelings of a beautiful lady, I propose that it should be the last.

None of the bus drivers knew of the disposition of the Nimbin bus, “a different company" they say, never mind that it has left from there twice a day, every day for decades, I smell a rat of roundups and killing.

I got to Nimbin and scored a bit of smoke, then went along to the old hippies commune to spend the night, I unrolled my swag in a cane break between the old site and the camping ground.. I looked up and saw the Moon was directly overhead, when it is like that, it looks like it is gonna fall out of the sky onto you... it was about a quarter past six in the pm.







I had spent the afternoon pickin' on a twelve string guitar at the Nimbin sound lounge, with a couple of players who regularly play in the guitar studio there, it was great to play with such accomplished musicians, the twelve belonged to the studio group, they very kindly encourage visitors to play and to sit in on the jams, there is no alcohol so we drank tea.



There's dealers up town that work the street, I bought some hydro weed at twelve dollars a gram, I never asked, but I suspect that as much as you want you can get, lying up in the cane break, thinkin' about my boorish lack of good manners in Mur'bah when I left the lady standing, and knowing real remorse both for her case, and at the missed opportunity to earn good karma.







Mulling over the irony of cane break residence, we had all just been talking and singing a little Johnny Cash in the studio, cane breaks were a place Johnny sang of often, I resolved that should the opportunity arise, I would certainly endeavor to set the record straight.. then it started to rain!



Down beside the creek was a tepee, it was dark, between the moonlight and the flashes of lightning I packed up and headed for the tepee, there was a made bed with sheets on inside, it was dry, and since it has been cold for September in Australia, warm.

My friend Geoff Hoani had told me about it when we were both working at Alcan Gove in Northern Australia in 2005.. he told me of the sheets and the tepee, now here I was.

Gove became a disaster area, there was a no smoking in the trucks rule, Geoff and his mates ignored that rule, I as union delegate was asked by a man who had to go home physically ill the day before to do something about it.. I lost my job trying to fix things, Geoff became the new delegate, and he and all his mates presumably went on smoking, the blokes that were getting sick must have just got sicker.. they were all scabs!



Now in the pourin' rain warm, dry and happy, the last of the Nimbin hippies, through the night and on into daybreak.. looking around the camp it was a mess... surely somebody from council should clean the site, except for the inside of the tepee and the bed, the place was filthy!



There was an empty drugs bag, I put a ten dollar note and a bud of cannabis into it, and placed the bag under a dry woolen jacket that was there, as well as a tube roll of mosquito repellent and some headache tabs!! there was a mixin' bowl and I left a bud of chop chop in that, and another half smoked joint on the fire place.



Back thru town on the way home to get the 9:30 am bus to Mur'bah, the ATM in Nimbin was closed, next door a chain store is doing EFTPOS transactions, anticipating her BS I say to the chick behind the counter "..what limit do you have for a cash only eftpos withdrawal,” she says, “how much do you want,” I tell her, "I want to go all the way," she snarls, “how much do you want,” I tell her, “I asked first ..what is the limit,” she turns away I say, "fifty please," she tells me there is a one dollar surcharge and hands me the keypad, then snatches it out of my hand when I have keyed in the number.



Then catch the bus to Murwillumbah, then straight onto the Tweed Heads bus, then straight onto the Robina bus that connects to the Brisbane train, and I got into Brisbane at 1:33 pm, just four hours after getting the bus in Nimbin!

I had a vivid dream some time ago.. I am a coarse working fellow in many ways... so that's that, in the dream I am making my way home from work along a path, a lady is coming towards me heading in the opposite direction, that she should not have to leave the path I saw I must step right away from it, so she might pass comfortably.

My hard workman's boots would be sufficient protection, yet even as I saw where I must stand, was there a puddle of water, and so was I up to my boot heels in muddy water when she passed... I remained cheerful and gave her my best smile when she went by, she was a little lady of indeterminate age and graciously smiled back.



So on, down the path a little was a leather wallet with gold coinage!



I believe the lady in town, and the one in the dream, and the beautiful girl at the travel center were avatars of the Goddess, she knew that under those circumstances in town I would fail, as well she knew that would engender remorse, still knowing I would offer atonement, in the form of the weed and the money in the bag, and for the peaceful dry night, it rained all night.



It was still her knowledge, that some person would find the bag with the marijuana and the ten dollars in it, even as I had found the wallet in the dream, and surely that then would fulfill yet another purpose of hers, to reward some kind person with a found gift, indeed it was she by some good device of hers, who placed the bag with the piece of weed that I found the week before.

jmc said:
Wonderfully written I was lost in your story.

Nimbin: Before European settlement the area was inhabited by the Bundjalung, Nimbinjee and Whiyabul aborigines, the town's name comes from the Nimbinjee people.







It is an isolated settlement hidden in the hills, 785 km north of Sydney via the Pacific Highway and 25 km north of Lismore, on the edge of the Nightcap National Park, where things have barely changed since the arrival of Europeans in the 1840s.







It has been a Mecca for alternative lifestylers since forever, and was the scene of a Woodstock style, Hippy type free music festival in 1969, that became famous as a free marijuana zone, and it stayed that way, forty years on and travelers still go there to get it.